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In certain toy racecar tracks, sneaky players can flip a switch, trapping their opponents’ vehicles in a loop of track. Cells employ a less subtle approach: they change the track’s layout. In a study published online in Science, scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and Oxford University discovered that, by forming or undoing…
Planktons constitute 98% of the ocean world and a group of researchers, after studying these in detail, believes that future oceanic changes would help in knowing which species of these would probably become extinct or migrate. Because these microscopic marine life forms, though very very small, contribute to the generation of oxygen on the planet…
Combine the tree-ring growth record with historical information, climate records, and computer-model projections of future climate trends, and you get a grim picture for the future of trees in the southwestern United States. That’s the word from a team of scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Arizona, and…
Fish species are expected to shrink in size by up to 24% because of global warming, say scientists. Researchers modeled the impact of rising temperatures on more than 600 species between 2001 and 2050. Warmer waters could decrease ocean oxygen levels and significantly reduce fish body weight. The scientists argue that failure to control greenhouse…
We could wring our hands about our unreconstructed nature but sex is at the center of human thought, and always has been. Some of the earliest cave art has erotic themes. We didn’t get where we are without genetic programming that makes us value eating, drinking and having sex. Add to that our inbuilt compulsion…
Astronomers have found a way to measure the size of a black hole. Supermassive black holes reside at the center of galaxies and have gravitational forces so strong that nothing, including light, can escape from being pulled into them. By combining the power of radio dishes in three different states into a super-telescope 2,000 times…
The Higgs boson, the pope, and the curious interaction between organized religion and big science.
Neuroscientists have found brain cells that compute value. Why are economists ignoring them?
Hypothesis: Scientists have a superior ability to root out gender bias in their labs because they are trained to rigorously reject subjective criteria. Experimental result: Naaahhh. Yale University researchers asked 127 scientists to review a job application of identically qualified male and female students and found that the faculty members – both men and women…
Using an innocuous bacterial virus, bioengineers have created a biological mechanism to send genetic messages from cell to cell. The system greatly increases the complexity and amount of data that can be communicated between cells and could lead to greater control of biological functions within cell communities. The researchers, Monica Ortiz, a doctoral candidate in…